Latest immigration & travel releases

If you're descended from immigrants, as so many of us are, you'll find this collection invaluable. It includes more than 60,000 records, showing those who became British citizens through naturalisation.

Becoming a citizen was important, as it gave people rights like voting and inheriting land. In these records, you'll find plenty of information for your tree, including birthplaces, ages, addresses and occupations. Plus, see if you can spot historical figures like author Joseph Conrad (listed as Conrad Korzeniowski).

Follow your family around the globe, whether they were starting a new life or just going on holiday. We can now help you find the full story of your ancestors’ journeys.

You can discover the port they left from, the country they were headed to, and even the ship they sailed on. So once you’ve found their departure in these records, you can trace their arrival in our overseas passenger lists, and then look for their return home in our Incoming Passenger Lists.

New homes

As an island nation, Britain’s history has inevitably been linked with the sea. Masters Certificates, 1850-1927, lets you discover your ancestors who worked on the water.

These records reveal thousands of merchant sailors who qualified as masters or mates. You can find your relatives’ names and addresses, where and when their certificates were issued, and an entire history of their service at sea.

Key Collections

Trace Jews fleeing Russia and Germany, West Indians finding new homes after World War II and millions of other arrivals over a century of British immigration.

Each ship’s list provides passengers’ names, ages, origins and their final destinations. With more than 16 million records to explore, you’ll often discover several members of a family arriving at different times.

Go back to the early 19th century to discover Irish famine refugees, plus thousands of other travellers from around the globe.

These registers of non-British citizens provide names, arrival ports and dates, home countries and even occupations — so it’s often easy to distinguish between two people with the same name. See if you can spot ancestors who later settled into life on our shores.

From the arrival of Australia’s first convicts in 1788 to assisted migration after World War II, British arrivals were largely responsible for populating the entire nation. Our passenger lists, naturalisation certificates and transportation registers let you find out why your ancestors carried out such a mammoth journey, and often how they fared when they got there.

This selection includes more than 13 million records from several different collections. You’ll find similar pages for other countries in the list on the right of this page.